Wine­house’s six-day drugs ‘cure’

pro­fes­sor who con­ducts a very spe­cial and ef­fec­tive method. She [Ms Wine­house] has re­quested to come to him to do this method, since it’s a method that is suit­able for her.”

The JC un­der­stands that Ms Wine­house will be treated by An­dre Wais­mann, head of the opi­ate-de­pen­dency unit at the ANR clinic at the Barzi­lai Med­i­cal Cen­tre in Ashkelon, a city fre­quently un­der Kas­sam rocket at­tack.

Dr Wais­mann’s “Ac­cel­er­ated Neu­roReg­u­la­tion” (ANR) method aims to re­verse both the drug ad­dic­tion and its symp­toms.

The pa­tient is put un­der anaes­thetic for be­tween five and six hours while Dr Wais­mann cleans and blocks the opi­oid re­cep­tors. They then ex­pe­ri­ence an in­tense pe­riod — hours in­stead of days — of with­drawal symp­toms, which oc­cur while they are anaes­thetised.

The pa­tient is then hos­pi­talised for around 36 hours. On dis­charge, they un­dergo a pe­riod of med­i­ca­tion to keep the opi­oid re­cep­tors blocked and pre­vent fur­ther crav­ings. Dr Wais­mann, who is due in Lon­don next week, said: “All of my pa­tients are dis­charged healthy and no longer de­pen­dent. There is a mis­un­der­stand­ing about drug ad­dic­tion. Peo­ple think it is a so­cial and psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lem, but it’s a neu­ro­log­i­cal prob­lem.

“Whether it’s Amy Wine­house or any­one else, it is a priv­i­lege to be able to treat any­one who is opi­ate-de­pen­dent, and al­low them to live a nor­mal life.”

Dr Wais­mann, 50, first de­vel­oped the tech­nique —which costs around £6,400 for­pri­vatepa­tientscom­ingfromabroad — 10 years ago. He says he has since treated more than 10,000, 60 per cent of whom have been heroin ad­dicts.

He has treated Is­raeli singer Gil Ar­gov, son of the late Zo­har Ar­gov, Is­rael’s top soul singer, who suf­fered from heroin ad­dic­tion and com­mit­ted sui­cide in 1987. Four years ago, Gil Ar­gov told a Tel Aviv news­pa­per that Dr Wais­mann’s treat­ment had saved his life.

Ms Wine­house, worth an es­ti­mated £10 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to this year’s Sun­day Times young mu­sic Rich List, had re­port­edly planned to have re­hab at the ANR Clinic last De­cem­ber, but did not turn up. Her de­ci­sion to do so now is likely to please her fam­ily, friends and record la­bel, who have re­port­edly been ad­vis­ing her to seek help.

Last Au­gust, she was ad­mit­ted to the Cause­way clinic, just out­side Lon­don, fol­low­ing an ap­par­ent over­dose. In Jan­uary, she was treated at Lon­don’s Ca­pio Nightin­gale Hospi­tal, af­ter a video of her smok­ing crack co­caine at her home was made pub­lic.

Eliezer Co­hen, a vet­eran IDF pilot and a for­mer mem­ber of Knes­set for right-wing par­ties Ichud Leumi and Yis­rael Beit­enu, has great plans for Amy. He says that ever since he was told about her trip to Is­rael, he has paid at­ten­tion to her mu­sic. “She’s a singer, a per­former, par ex­cel­lence.”

He has ap­proached a “fa­mous Is­raeli poet” and asked her to trans­late Ms Wine­house’s song Re­hab into He­brew. “I have in­structed the trans­la­tor to give the text a twist that would al­ter the hit into an anti-drug song, which we’ll give her to sing in He­brew or in English.”

He al­ready en­vi­sions “the logo and the head­line: ‘ The queen of drugs, whose song declar­ing that she’d con­tinue to use drugs is sung by all the world, is forced to hos­pi­talise her­self for drugs cleans­ing’.”

Should the Grammy win­ner be will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in Mr Co­hen’s big plan, this ver­sion of the hit would make her, he be­lieves, a “new type of role model”.

Her press of­fi­cer, Chris Good­man, how­ever, knocked down the Is­raelis’ ex­pec­ta­tions. He said: “There’s noth­ing planned. I’ve heard the story be­fore, that it’s some­thing we planned a long time ago. I don’t think it will ever hap­pen.”